Your brand is the cornerstone of your small business. It blends your small business identity with the perceptions of your customers, competitors, and anyone who is available in contact with your small business. How your brand is perceived greatly influences the value customers derive from interacting with you.
A good brand not only helps you stand out in the competitive landscape but in addition attracts customers. On the other hand, a great brand goes beyond this, establishing a unique connection between your customer and your small business.
Maintaining a distinguished brand presence is crucial for anyone starting or growing a small orÂ
Throughout the months of November and December 2023, we surveyed greater than 100 of our merchants to understand how they manage their brands and the challenges they face, providing you with key insights. This information will assist you in elevating your brand in 2024.
Long-Term Advantages of Investing in Brand
Our customer study reveals that SMB entrepreneurs understand the significance of investing in and developing their brands. A notable 84% of respondents imagine brand development is a helpful business investment. That is a particularly good result because investing in a brand gives you a lot
Brand investment can expand your reach and attract more customers, but there may be a lot more to it than that. Let’s dive into two less obvious yet crucial benefits:
Trust
Research indicates that 4 out of 5 consumers require trust in a brand before they even consider making a purchase.
Our survey of merchants found similar data and identified a common thread amongst successful businesses: the top three reasons consumers connect with their brand are related to trust:
- Consistent and reliable product/service performance
- Exceptional customer support (including
after-sales support and warranties) - Recommendations and referrals from friends and family
Although these reasons contribute to trust in alternative ways, specializing in them can enhance customer loyalty and revenue. Importantly, these strategies don’t set you back financially, but they require time and consistency for you to reap all of the advantages.
Perceived Value
The perceived value that customers get from a business extends beyond the actual product or service. The way you position your brand in the market allows consumers to make subjective decisions in favor of your brand. AÂ
As an illustration,
One other example is how smaller brands with longstanding relationships and a deep community presence profit from high trust and credibility in their specific geographic region.
Each examples increase the brand’s perceived value, allowing merchants to set higher prices and enjoy strengthened customer loyalty.
Overcoming Budget and Time Restraints
In our research, we discovered some great insights that could be of value to other business owners.
We found that owners of small online businesses don’t really find it difficult to define their very own unique brand identity or understand their ideal target market and their preferences. That is excellent news. Knowing your audience’s preferences is vital to constructing a distinctive brand identity that resonates with them.
It is sensible that owners of SMB businesses have a keen sense of their brand identity and who their customers are, given they’re fully involved in the business and wear many alternative hats.
Nevertheless, we did find that merchants find it difficult to use this understanding of their customers and brand and turn it into engaging content and compelling stories.
~60% of merchants surveyed have moderate to very significant challenges with leveraging their creative skills to construct engaging content and compelling stories.
Nevertheless, the most typical challenge we’ve found amongst small business owners is an absence of budget and time to deal with brand development.
Luckily, there are quite a few ways you may overcome these challenges without breaking the bank or spending limitless hours on more tasks.
The Way forward for Branding Is All About Personalization
As mentioned earlier in this blog, trust is available in many forms and is a key component of constructing your brand.
Unsurprisingly, there may be a human element to trust. Consumers are far more prone to trust a person than a brand, which is why we are seeing an increase in big and small businesses adopting a more human approach to their brand. Our research also confirms that this concept is true.
Almost 80% of respondents say that the business owners are a key element in their brand storytelling.
One of these brand personalization helps bring authenticity to your brand and will certainly repay. Consider this: what feels more authentic? A small business owner passionately discussing their products and business, or a faceless ad describing how the company helps its customers?
In keeping with Stackla (2021), “88% of consumers say authenticity is vital when deciding which brands they like and support, with 50% stating it’s very vital.”
Authentic content is also easier to create as a small orÂ
Think in regards to the Customer Experience
Research from Segment.com reveals that over half (56%) of consumers state they are going to change into repeat buyers after a personalized experience, marking a 7% increase
This need for personalization will proceed to change into more distinguished yearly, as the same study found that younger consumers are most probably to have negative reactions following an impersonal experience.
 49% of Gen Z say they’re less prone to make a purchase, and 27% say they’ll stop shopping with the brand or share the negative experience with friends or family.ÂSegment.com
The personalization trend also extends to the customer experience. Consumers now expect a personalized experience each while shopping
There are a lot of ways in which Ecwid by Lightspeed can aid you with this.
With our recently revamped export tool, you now have much easier access to all of your customer data at all times. This data could be easily imported into external tools to aid you share personal promotions, recommendations, or news along with your customers. Or export the data of those that have abandoned their carts in your store, enabling you to use your selected email tool to reach out to customers.
In our latest Customer section throughout the Ecwid admin, you’ll find all of the actionable details about your customers.
On the Customers page, you can even add any customer from the list to any of your existing customer groups
In our app market, you’ll find multiple tools to chat along with your customers, equivalent to Intercom and Live Chat — that are each excellent options for connecting along with your customers and offering an exceptional personal customer experience.
Take heed to podcast: Customer Service Tools Every Business Needs
AI Content Is Your Friend To Scale Your Content Production
Tools like ChatGPT and CopyAI are excellent resources to aid you discover, create, or review your text. These tools have significantly lowered the barriers, enabling anyone to share their stories and brands with a broader audience without investing much time.
Concurrently, platforms like Looka simplify branding efforts for your store by leveraging AI to design distinctive logos and materials that align along with your company’s unique identity. You’ll be able to generate personalized marketing materials like business cards, brand kits, and social media templates. Explore the Looka app available in the Ecwid App Market.
You’ll be able to create every kind of branded designs with Looka
Tips about using AI to create great content
Working with AI tools is latest for almost everyone. Due to this fact, we have asked Francesca Nicasio, certainly one of our
When it involves using AI for content, prompt engineering is key. Start by crafting prompts that specifically tell the AI platform what you wish in clear, concise, and detailed terms. Be specific; tell it exactly what style or tone you’re searching for, the length of the content, and any key points or themes that should be included.
One other helpful tip is to cite a particular person or company whose brand voice is just like yours. For instance, you may say, “Write in the voice of Oprah.”
Also, keep in mind that AI learns and adapts based on your prompts and input, so if it doesn’t get it right the first time, then
Also: The best way to Use AI Tools Effectively as a Business Owner
Lastly, manage your expectations. From a content creation perspective, AI tools are helpful for things like:
- Brainstorming
- Creating rough drafts
- Helping you discover the right word or phrase.
But at the end of the day, the final content will still require a human touch to be sure it lands and connects along with your audience.
In a world increasingly dominated by automation, your distinctly human ability to empathize, create, and connect on a personal level stays irreplaceable. So while you need to definitely use AI to drive more efficient content creation, don’t forget to infuse your personal unique insights and emotional intelligence into the final product.
If you’re inquisitive about learning more about AI tools for your small business. Try this convenient guide with more AI tools for your small business:
Don’t Forget To Measure Your Success
Investing in anything related to your small business without measuring success in some type of way will diminish its impact because you do not know if it was successful. Your money and resources are helpful, so you might have to make sure you see positive results and be sure you’re not wasting your resources if something is not working.
We aren’t suggesting that you need to at all times have extensive data and multiple reports ready before investing. Nevertheless, you do have to have some understanding of the impact and effect of your investment.
A general rule of thumb is that the more you invest (time, resources, or money), the more you ought to be aware of its impact. Having at least some insight into how your investment affects your small business will aid you determine whether it has succeeded or if you need to explore alternative strategies.
Difficulty in Measuring Brand Success
Measuring
Nevertheless, forÂ
If you utilize Ecwid to sell and promote on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, you’ll probably see increased sales. Nevertheless, the data may not include orders from customers who follow your social media accounts and content, never click on a link in a post, and then go to your website and make a purchase.
Moreover, quick access to reports and data could be a challenge. In keeping with our survey, roughly 1 in 5 merchants do not actively measure effectiveness or have access to accurate and relevant data to assess their success. This represents a significant missed opportunity for those merchants. So, how are you going to begin measuring your success effectively?
Where To Start Measuring Your Success
There are numerous ways to measure the success of your efforts. The approach you are taking is determined by the goals you’ve set. Are you aiming to expand your brand reach to find latest potential customers? Or deal with strengthening connections with existing customers? The info you could measure will vary accordingly.
In our survey, we aimed to discover the most typical methods they use to measure their
Our findings align with the concept that SMBs are and should explore different methods to measure their brand success. It’s encouraging to see that the majority of SMB online retailers comprehend methods to gauge their performance, but for those among the many 1 in 5 who may not, we are here to help.
How Ecwid Can Help You
There are a few ways in which Ecwid can assist you.
Our recently launched advanced reporting feature lets you review data related to sales and revenue, website traffic, conversion rates, and purchase patterns directly from the Ecwid admin — enabling you to understand the overall impact of your efforts. With the compare functionality, you may quickly review your
We are actively working on adding much more reports, providing you with additional data to make informed
